


Chick Fic

by SilverEclipse119



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Cat, Did I tag Character!Thomas correctly?, Gen, I hope this funny, It was when I first wrote it, Patton and Janus have a few tired dad moments, Roman actually turns into an egg first, Shapeshifting, Then becomes the bird, There's a cat at one point, i have no idea where this would take place in the timeline, its mostly about Roman and Logan, remus is remus, shapeshifter stuck in one form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25388452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverEclipse119/pseuds/SilverEclipse119
Summary: "Of course you're not a chick. You're a metaphysical human being. A chick is a newly hatched bird."- Logan inDealing with Intrusive ThoughtsA slightly tipsy evening and a competition with Logan results in Roman accidentally turning himself into a bird! Now it's up tothe other sidesLogan to figure out how to help him turn back. However, he'll soon find that sometimes these things just have a way of working themselves out.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Chick Fic

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:**
> 
>   * Shapeshifting character getting stuck in a shapeshifted form 
>   * Food 
>   * Remus being Remus  Let me know if I missed anything. Enjoy!
> 


Tonight was the start of a break. Thomas was relaxed on his couch, a wine glass ( _not_ filled with Gatorade) resting between his fingers. Colourful light flashed over the current remains of a large pizza, though whether there would be leftovers was yet to be determined.

Thomas was perfectly chill. Even Virgil, despite his best efforts, hadn't found anything to complain about. He had not intended to end up where he was now, sandwiched on a couch between Patton and, reluctantly, Janus. He and Roman had been the most opposed to the snake when he had popped in to propose that a little selfishness was in order. Patton had grabbed Roman’s hand and assured him that Janus was right, kiddo, Thomas had been working very hard; and Logan had taken a moment to chart out the levels of progress they had made with their project to assure Virgil that, yes, they were right on schedule and taking a break would not hinder their deadline.

Virgil was still wary of Patton’s and Janus’s recent alliance, and had so decided that he wasn’t going to let either of them out of his sight until the night could be deemed a success. However, as he sat between them, stiffly watching Janus like a guard dog waiting for him to make a sudden move, he had actually found himself _relaxing_! The highly-strung tension that he was used to having in his muscles had slightly melted away, and the usual knots in his stomach had come loose. His screaming sense of danger had been quieted like a baby with a pacifier, and was no longer forcing him to stay awake and aware. His eyelids were falling even as he tried to keep them open so he could at _least_ watch _Poor Unfortunate Souls_.

Virgil’s head slowly progressed downward, bobbing against the couch, then onto Patton’s shoulder. Patton ran his fingers delicately through the anxious side’s hair. Virgil snorted, but didn’t wake. It took all of Patton’s self control not to cheer in victory, his sparkling eyes bringing a smile to Janus’s face as he pointed excitedly at his dozing emo son. Janus nodded and turned back to the movie, adoring Ursula's scheming. He wondered if and how he could get _himself_ one of these so called ‘villain songs’.

However, two particular sides were out of business for the night. Logan and Roman, quite literally, had nothing to do. Thomas wasn’t focused on creating, or even deep thinking. He was letting the television do the work for him tonight, which Logan could concede wasn’t too much of an issue so long as it didn’t become a habit. He'd be begrudged to admit it, but it had been a partial relief when Janus popped in and had stopped them from working, even if the part of him that always wanted to push Thomas to get things done _was_ nagging him a bit.

Perhaps it had been because Logan had wanted a distraction from that urge, or perhaps it had been boredom, or perhaps it had just been the wine: but for whatever reason, Logan had at one moment been alone and irritated, and the next moment he was in Roman’s room. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there.

The two of them were now reclined, backs flat on roman’s bed, feet flat on Roman’s floor. They had been talking in pointless circles about whatever popped into their groggy heads as they watched the animated clouds on Roman’s ceiling drift by. Their conversation had jumped from cartoon physics to quantum physics to sci-fi to aliens to squids to dolphins to elephants to Alladin to Disney to dragons…

“I can turn into a dragon, you know?” Roman jumped to suddenly. “Just like Maleficent, do you wanna see?”

“Roman, we can all shapeshift.” Logan stated, but a grin cracked his serious façade less then a second later. “Yeah, I want to see.”

Roman bounced up to his feet. He closed his eyes and tilted his head. He pressed his fingertips into his palms.

“Woah!” Logan gasped, squinting up towards the large white shape that filled his blurry vision, before finally remembering that his glasses were sitting on his chest. He put them on as he sat up, not taking his eyes off of Roman. He was so large that the walls of his room had pushed back, and the sky-painted ceiling had risen to cathedral height to make room for him to sit comfortably.

Roman’s large, fanged maw split into a grin. “Pretty cool right?”

“What else can you do?”

The dragon closed his eyes, and one _whoosh_ later four heavy paws gracefully landed on the floor as the room returned to its normal size. The red maned lion raised his head and thundered a roar into the air.

Logan pushed his glasses up his nose. “I bet you can’t be an elephant.”

A moment later, an elephant trumpeted.

“How about a chimera?”

The manticore-chimera swished his scorpion tail as his snake tail snapped at it. “I did you one better!” The goat head bleated.

Logan felt giddy. He stood up, swaying a tiny bit on his feet. The lion head grinned. “You wanna go, nerd?”

“I bet you can’t be a dog!”

A golden retriever with a streak of red fur down his back barked and wagged his tail.

“A mongoose?”

The mongoose shrieked.

“A moose?”

The beast grunted as he shook his golden antlers.

“A fairy?”

“I thought you were trying to challenge me?” Roman’s voice squeaked from his tiny, winged body.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “How about a snake?”

Roman’s eye roll was too tiny for Logan to see. The gold, red, and white snake plopped to the floor in a coil. “What, were you trying to sssike me out?”

Logan went back into rapid fire. “A bear, a boar, a buffalo!”

Roman met his rapid pace in stride. Fur and horns and tails popped in and disappeared faster than Logan’s eyes could keep up. The room groaned as it shifted in and out to accommodate the sizes of the larger animals.

“A butterfly, a bird, a crab, a-!” Logan was interrupted when the walls of the room crunched loudly and definitively into their regular place. The painted sky overhead came to a halt, the clouds no longer blowing in simulated wind.

The spot Logan had been watching so intently was empty. He blinked, pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes and looked again. Roman had disappeared.

"Roman?”

No response.

“Roman?” Logan got down on his knees, checking to see if roman had turned into a bug or something to play a trick on him. “Roman?”

The sunlight filtering into Roman’s room glinted off something that was buried in the white plush. A small splash of red caught Logan’s eye.

An egg, just a little smaller than a chicken egg, sat nestled into the carpet. It had a brilliant white shell that was nearly opalescent from a dusting of gold speckles. A red stripe ran around the diagonal perimeter.

“Roman.” Logan exhaled, blurry logic putting the pieces together.

Logan didn’t panic. Virgil wasn’t around or aware enough to help him do so. Ironically, he realised, panicking would summon Virgil to his side. It was a loop: Logan panicking would summon Virgil, Virgil would make Logan panic...

Logan was still thinking about the paradox when he realized his knees were getting sore from kneeling and he still hadn't done anything about Roman’s situation.

He nudged the egg into his palm. It was heavier than he had expected.

He wished his head felt clearer. He tried to drag up anything he knew about birds. His knowledge loaded into his brain slower than it would have taken to search for it on internet explorer. The pop-up ads were a bit distracting as well.

“ _Eggs need to stay warm._ Am I a dad now? _I could candle it to see how soon it’ll hatch._ Should I ask Patton for advice? _I might need an incubator._ Should I tell Virgil?” Logan ran a hand down his face. He couldn’t work right now.

“This is why you don’t drink and drive.” he muttered to the egg in his hand.

In the end, he simply went back to his room. He fluffed up a pillow on his bed and nested the egg into it, then crawled into his bed on the other side. He lied on his side, curled into a loose fetal position with his arms and knees tucked against the pillow with the egg on it.

Not knowing what else to do, he began relaying various philosophies to his silent room mate with a diminishing rate of success; he became less coherent the drowsier Thomas got.

Eventually, Thomas went to bed. Logan watched the egg fade with his drooping eyelids and darkening room.

“Goodnight, Roman.” he yawned. “I hope you’re better in the morning.”

\---

When Logan blinked awake the next morning, he was greeted by the egg still resting on the pillow.

Without the bit of alcohol clouding his mind anymore, he was finally able to muster up a jolt of panic at the situation. His spine stiffened as the night before came back with more clarity than he'd had at the time. He had just whispered out an: “Oh no.”, when he heard a door burst open in the hallway outside his room, followed by rapid footsteps and another crash as his own door was kicked open.

“What’s the emergency?!” Virgil asked, panting from his run over. His eyes trailed from Logan’s face over to the egg that was sitting, nestled like a pearl in an oyster, next to the logical side’s head.

“Uh…” Logan tried to come up with an explanation as he sat up.

“Wha-?” Virgil started to ask. They were both interrupted by a light cracking sound.

They turned to the egg, neither saying a word as the shell split in a cartoonishly perfect crack right down its center. They watched as the sides of the shell fell away, leaving a pinkish nestling covered in soft, white down sitting in the middle of the pillow.

Logan let out a single nervous laugh, both at the pure absurdity of the whole situation, and at the realization that Roman had somehow taken a creative licence about how birds hatch. If the situation had been different, Logan might have lectured him.

The nestling stretched out his nearly featherless wings as he let out a tiny yawn. The movement was much more human than bird-like. He finished by shaking his head, and finally opened his eyes.

Immediately, he seemed confused that his eyes were not on the front of his head. He looked side to side as he glanced between Logan and Virgil. The next thing he seemed to notice was that Logan was clearly a whole lot bigger than him.

There was a long stretch of silence as the three contemplated each other. Then Roman started screaming in a burst of loud, prolonged peeps. Virgil screamed next, followed by Logan.

“Why is there a bird in here?!” yelled Virgil.

“It’s Roman!” Logan yelled back.

“Why is Roman a bird?!”

“It was an accident!”

“Peeeep! Peeeep!” Roman added.

“How do we fix him?!” Virgil had a hand pressed to his forehead. He looked like he was going to pass out. “I swear, I take one break, and look what happens!”

“Peeeep!” Roman shook his head.

“It wasn’t your fault, Virgil. Roman and I should have been more careful.”

“But if I had been there, I could have stopped you! Now he’s like _this_!” Virgil gestured harshly at the little bird. “Can’t you just... turn back?”

Roman closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. He inspected his naked wings and shook his head. “Peep.”

“It… would appear he is stuck.” Logan more or less translated.

“How can you be stuck?! You’re the best at shapeshifting out of all of us!”

Roman shrugged. “Peep.”

“I don’t think he knows.”

“Can’t you help him?!”

“I’m not a miracle worker, Virgil. This fantasy, shapeshifting stuff is a gimmick that is, mostly, out of my domain.”

“ _You_ can shapeshift too!”

“Yes, when it’s educational or helpful. Not for... ah... ‘funsies’, as that card that Patton made for me says.”

Virgil sank to the floor. “Oh my god, I’m in hell. I’m in hell and there aren't any demons, just a useless nerd and a tiny white bird.”

“A bit hurtful, Virgil, but I would like to point out that rhymed.”

“What are you kiddos screaming about?”

The three of them turned to see Patton, still in his onesie, step into the room. He was rubbing his eyes and had the almost anime look of a child that had been woken abruptly and unpleasantly.

“Roman turned into a bird and now he’s stuck.”

“Logan! You can’t just go around telling everyone about this!” Virgil hissed.

“Why not? Hiding the problem isn’t going to fix it. Perhaps Patton could provide us with a solution.”

“A bird?” Patton perked up, his sleepiness evaporating. He ran to the other side of the bed and squealed when he caught sight of Roman. He scooped the nestling carefully into his palm and ran a finger over the soft down on his head. “Oh my goodness gracious! You're so cute Roman!”

“Peep.” said Roman.

“So much for a solution.” said Logan.

“Yeah.” said Virgil, very much wishing he had not left his phone, and by extension the camera it contained, on the charger in his room. For blackmail of course. Not because his dark heart was melting at the tooth rotting sweetness of Patton rubbing his nose against Roman’s head.

“Do you think that’s hygienic?” Logan whispered.

Virgil shrugged.

“Do you want breakfast, you little cutie _mag_ -pie?” Patton cooed.

“I think he’s some kind of dove, actually.” Logan corrected him.

\---

About half an hour later, the four of them were having a three-part awkward, one-part delightful breakfast. Neither Logan nor Virgil had even touched their food, the two of them unintentionally mimicking each other as they swirled their coffee. Roman was sitting on a cloth directly on the table, picking half-heartedly at an arrowroot cookie that had been softened with a little water.

Patton was humming as he cooked for himself, so at least someone was in high spirits.

“Say, ah, Logan. Didn’t you get stuck shapeshifting once?” Virgil broke the silence. “When we did the puppet thing?”

“Er, yes.”

“Well, how did you fix that?”

“I don’t know, it just,” Logan waved his hand in the air. “Wore off after a while.”

Virgil pressed a hand to his face and exhaled into his palm. “Mmm, helpful.”

“I don’t know what you expected, considering none of _you_ helped _me_.”

“Peep pe-eep.” Roman snided.

“As clever as I’m sure that was, none of us can understand a word you’re saying, Roman.”

“Peep.” Roman grumbled.

They fell into silence once again, save for Patton’s humming.

They all tensed when they heard rapid footsteps on the basement stairs. Despite bracing themselves, the four of them still jumped when the door was kicked open, slapping against the wall with an echoing _wham!_

“I wish to feast upon the unborn!” Remus shouted.

Janus wasn’t far behind as he sauntered up the stairs. “He wants eggs.” He clarified.

“I want to feel their juices pour down my chin like the blood of my enemy's heart!”

“Over easy.” Janus added. He sat down at the table and pulled a newspaper out of his cape.

“Righty-o.” Patton exhaled.

“Remus, you do know that the eggs sold at grocery stores are unfertilized, right?” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose as he began to explain. “They are not, as you said, _unborn_ chickens. Actually, if you want to get even more technical, _these_ eggs in particular are _imaginary_ -”

“Yes, _everyone knows_ eggs are just chicken menstruation, Logan! Jeez!” Remus collapsed into a chair, propping his feet on the kitchen table, right next to Logan and Virgil’s plates. The tip of his heel was resting in Logan’s scrambled eggs. “Anyhoo, you would not believe this idea I just had! So, get this… is that Roman?”

The duke was blessedly cut short when he spotted his brother, who had been trying to scoot off the table with little success.

“By Zeus’s untameable dick, it is!” In a horrifying display of defying and defiling human anatomy, Remus crawled over his own legs and rested his chest on the table as he stared at his birdified brother. His feet slowly slid off the table and _thunked_ back onto the floor.

“He’s stuck.” Logan explained, pushing away his plate.

“You don’t say?” Remus laughed, poking one of Roman’s wings. Roman responded by biting his finger, and actually managed to draw a drop of blood. “So vicious!” Remus crooned.

“Leave your brother alone, Remus.” Patton commanded, softly but firmly. Remus slid back into his chair.

“You know, this happened to me once! I turned into a rat! Of course, that was a live birth…” Remus mused.

Janus slapped his newspaper onto the kitchen table. “I just remembered I have somewhere I need to be. A place that is very much not here.”

“Aww, but you were _there_ , Jannie! You could help me remember the details!”

“I’d love to, but I’m very busy.”

“I think I need to be at that place too.” Virgil excused himself.

“But-” Remus whined.

“Nope!” they responded in unison, and each went their separate ways.

Remus squinted his eyes. "I thought they said they were going to the same place?"

Logan hummed, neither confirming nor denying Remus's suspicion. “So, uh, how did you get back to normal? When you were stuck as the rat?”

Remus shrugged. “It fixed itself, after some time.”

“Ah.” Logan sighed.

“Peep?”

Logan looked over. Roman was flapping his wings. He looked uncomfortable, like he was going to sneeze. He shook his head, his eyes squinting. He suddenly pulled in tight, and his whole body pulsed. With a _poof_ , white feathers sprouted across his body. He was a little bigger too.

He stretched out his wings, examining the new feathers. Some of them were tipped with red, and a few even had metallic gold tips. Logan snorted. Even when stuck as a bird, Roman could be so extra.

“Oh yeah, that might happen too.” Remus added.

“One egg, over easy.” Patton announced. Without turning around, he flipped the egg into the air behind him. Remus jumped up and snapped it out of the air. Egg yolk splattered across the table and onto Logan's shirt and Roman's feathers.

“Chirp!” Roman yelped, shaking the sticky orange goop off his wing.

“You said it.” Griped Logan.

\---

Roman rode on Logan’s shoulder as they returned to his room. Logan passed through quickly, making a beeline for his library. He didn’t want to keep Roman in his room longer than needed. The last thing either of them wanted was for the effects of his abode to begin rubbing off on the creative side on top of everything else. Logan suspected the only reason he had been safe the night before was because he had _technically_ been asleep.

“Well, Remus wasn’t much help. Which is about what I should have expected.” He began picking through the nearest shelf, lightly touching the spines of a few books to get a feel for their contents, before moving on to another shelf. “Thomas doesn't seem to need us yet, so I suppose in the meantime we could do our own research, do you agree?”

“Chirp?” Roman questioned beside his ear. He mimed a fluttering motion with his wings.

“Are you wondering about what Remus and I said? About how you’ll go back to normal eventually?”

Roman nodded.

“Well, I suppose you might. But a little research never hurts, just in case, heaven forbid, you don’t turn back. Or, _maybe_ we’ll find a way to turn you back sooner.”

“Chirp.” Roman grumbled, in a way that sounded similar to: “I guess.”

“Of course. No research is ever wasted Roman. It might be fun.” Logan had a smile in his voice as he slipped a book off the shelf.

“Chirp chirp.” Roman replied, in a way that could easily be translated to: “You’re such a nerd.” There was a warble of laughter in his voice, though.

“So, where do you want to start? We could look at psychology, to see if this has anything to do with Thomas’s mental state. Or philosophy, to see if anyone has connected birds to anything about the human mind.”

Roman mimed a huge yawn. Logan pursed his lips, shooting a peeved look at the fledgling on his shoulder.

“Well, I was going to suggest that we could try mythology, to see if this has anything to do with Thomas’s knowledge of historic myths… But I suppose that would just be a waste of time...” He continued coyly.

“Chirp!” Roman exclaimed, looking irritated that Logan hadn't just said so in the first place.

“Yeah, I thought you’d go for that one. Here,” Logan put back the book he was holding and took another off the shelf. “I think there's a cautionary tale about birds in this one, give it a try.”

Roman hopped onto one of the tables as Logan set the book down. He had to open the thick, heavy cover for Roman, as his tiny form wasn't quite strong enough to lift it, but he seemed to be able to flip the pages. Logan struggled to keep poker-faced as he watched the fledgling lift a page up part way with his beak and nudge it back down with his head. Logan pressed a hand to his chest in confusion as a sound worked its way up his throat, something that he was afraid would sound like a high-pitched squeal if he allowed it to escape. He swallowed it back down. Perhaps he had heartburn from consuming nothing but coffee for breakfast.

“I am going to go the psychology route.” Logan declared as he slipped another book off the shelf and slammed its spine against the table.

“Chirp.” Roman nodded, not really listening.

The two of them lapsed into silence for a time, mostly because they couldn’t hold a conversation anyway. Logan tried not to stare every time Roman flipped a page.

Logan didn’t really notice when it started. It might have been the quiet, or that his library was filled with one of his favorite comfort sounds of flipping pages and steady breathing, or perhaps it was trickle down relaxation from Thomas taking another day off: but one moment he was reading, and the next his chin was resting in the crease of the thick book he had spread on the table before him. He wasn’t in a deep sleep, that was impossible while Thomas was awake, but it was as close as he could get.

Roman had watched his head dip with increasing amusement. He and the others had called Logan to dinner a few times in the past and had seen his head snap upwards, followed by vehement denials that he had been asleep. Now that he had got to watch Logan doze on one of his precious books firsthand, there would be no more denying it.

Roman would have felt snider about it if he wasn’t just a little distracted. Logan’s hair had gotten a bit mussed from the logical side running his hands through it as he read. It looked kind of soft… and comfortable…

Roman was up and walking before he even knew what he was doing, pulled by some sort of birdly instinct. He hopped up onto Logan’s shoulder, holding his breath and waiting for Logan to make a move. When Logan didn’t stir, he carefully adjusted his balance, and then hopped up onto the logical side’s head.

“ _What the_ heck _am I doing?!_ ” He thought as he settled into the logical side’s hair like it was a nest, tucking his wings in close. It was surprisingly cozy. His little head began to bob as well, drifting back to settle against his body. He let out the tiniest of chirps as he too drifted off into light slumber.

\---

About an hour later, a soreness in Logan’s jaw began to make him stir. He was further awoken when he heard the click of a polaroid camera, followed by the digital snap of a cell phone.

He jerked upward. Roman squawked and gripped onto his hair so he wouldn’t fall. Logan blinked, reaching up and plucking Roman off of his head. They both shared a confused, bleary moment as they stared at each other. Then, they both looked in the direction of the sound that had woken them.

Standing in the doorway of the library, each frozen with their camera and cell phone respectively, stood Patton and Virgil. Patton looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar again. Virgil was smirking.

Logan gently dropped Roman on the table.

“Hey…” Patton waved sheepishly.

“So…?” Logan inquired.

“Lunch.” Patton informed him.

Virgil tapped away at his phone for a moment, before darkening the screen and slipping it away. “We, uh, just came to get you… for… that…”

Logan raised his eyebrows sceptically. “Right…”

(Janus’s phone pinged. He picked it up and looked at the message: ‘Patton said I should send this to you.’ There was a photo attached. Janus smiled so wide that the snake half of his face split up to his ear.

“Hey, you two, come over here!” he called to his companions. “I think you’ll both love this!”)

\---

Roman pecked the seeds off a slice of ancient grains bread as Logan debated whether or not to add another cucumber slice to his sandwich.

“Do you think you’re any closer to turning back, Roman?” He asked, putting the slice down. No, that looked like too much cucumber.

Roman shook his head. “Chirp.”

“Did you learn anything from the bird story?” Logan picked the cucumber up. Now it didn’t seem like there was enough.

“Chirp.” Roman said, noncommittally.

“Darn.” Logan put the slice back on the vegetable tray. The sandwich seemed adequate without it. He put the top slice on and cut it across the diagonal line. “I, er, didn’t really get much out of my reading either.”

“You don’t say.” Roman replied, though it sounded more like: “Chirp chirrip.”

“Says the bird who climbed onto my head while I was asleep.” Logan shot back.

"Chirp." Roman conceded, bitterly.

“And you’re _sure_ that’s what you want on your sandwich, Remus?” Patton asked from the nearby counter.

“Yup!” Remus exclaimed.

“Looks delicious.” Janus drawled.

Logan took a bite of his own sandwich before he looked over. He was intending to eat a proper meal this time, but he knew his curiosity about the Duke’s lunch could be the end of that.

Remus’s sandwich could best be described as a ‘mayonnaise disaster’.

Logan shrugged and went back to eating his own sandwich. At least Remus had put something _edible_ on his sandwich this time.

Logan tried to remain distracted with his lunch, even when he heard a splat followed by an “Ugh!” from Janus, which was then followed by an “Oops!” from Remus. He contemplated what he should read once he was back in his library. There were plenty more books he could peruse, but the day was half over already and he hadn't accomplished much more than a nap. He wondered if his lackadaisical mood had something to do with Thomas taking a break.

He felt a growing irritation as he thought about all the work they still had to do over the next few weeks. It wasn’t like they were _behind_ , but Logan didn’t know if Roman being stuck like this would ruin his carefully laid plans. Their bout of silliness had cost Logan valuable time, now that he was determined to fix the mess he had caused. He closed his eyes as the sandwich crunched between his teeth. “ _You make one little mistake… let yourself go just a little too much... I should have just stayed in my room last night, maybe done a puzzle or something…_ ”

Though, admittedly, the time he had spent with Roman that night had felt delightfully enlightening, even if he didn’t remember half of what they had talked about. And the time in the library had been… peaceful. He wondered if Roman-

“Remus! Don’t eat your brother!”

Logan’s eyes snapped open to see Virgil scoop Roman off the table and hold him protectively against his chest. Janus seemed to be wrestling with a large green snake that Patton was lightly smacking on the snout with a newspaper.

“This is a one snake household!” Janus declared, finally tossing Remus off the table.

Remus was back to being humanoid before he hit the floor. “Party pooper!” He whined. He flipped onto all fours and scrambled up onto the counter to snatch his ‘sandwich’ in his mouth, before fleeing down the basement stairs, trailing mayonnaise in his wake.

“Oh, he’s going to get that all over the carpet.” Janus groaned, running after the fleeing rat man.

Logan took another bite of his sandwich. Other than the whole ‘Roman is a bird’ situation, it was shaping up to be a rather uneventful lunch.

“Oh!” Virgil jumped, accidently dropping Roman back onto the table. A handful of feathers fluttered down with him. Roman was tucked into a tight ball once again. His body pulsed with golden light, and all the sudden he was quite a bit bigger.

Roman stretched out his wings, letting the golden tips reflect the light coming through the window as he admired his new adult bird form.

“Yes, I was right. Definitely a dove. A very extra dove.” Logan laughed.

“Coo!” Roman gasped, offended.

\---

Roman was riding on Logan’s shoulder again. Apparently, the other sides had decided that bird-sitting was Logan’s duty; Logan wasn’t sure if that was because he had been a key part in the whole mess, or if it was just because he had taken the most charge of researching it. He was on his way back to his library, part of him itching to get back into his books.

And yet, there was a part of him that continued to think about the previous night, and his afternoon nap. It had been nice, participating in the break that he spent so much of his time convincing Thomas to take. He usually spent most breaks reorganising Thomas’s knowledge. Collecting one’s thoughts wasn’t an _unusual_ thing to do during a break in one’s work, he supposed, but this time around he found that there was something to be said for not thinking about work at all. It was difficult, that was a significant portion of what Logan was made to _do_ after all, but this time Logan was surprised to find himself _craving_ down time.

“Hey, Roman-” Logan began to ask, but he was cut off by the familiar tug of Thomas summoning him. “Oop, hold on!”

Logan winced as Roman’s talon’s dug into his shoulder, the dove trying not to fall as the carpet swallowed them. Roman flapped his wings to keep his balance as Logan shot back up.

“How can... we... help?” Logan asked. His brows furrowed. Thomas wasn’t standing in his living room.

“Over here!” Thomas whispered loudly. Logan turned around to see him tucked up in the back corner of his kitchen. He was wielding a long broom and a dustpan, the brush of the broom pointed towards the floor just in front of the door.

Logan’s eyes trailed the distance from the broom to the carpet. He stepped back from the door when he saw what Thomas was so worried about.

A cat was sitting on the carpet. It was one of the skinnier looking kinds. Its orange, furry back was arched as it licked at the fluffy white fur on its inner thigh. It didn’t seem to be paying anyone in the room much heed.

“How did that get in here?” Logan inquired.

“It slipped in just now, when I was coming inside. It squished right past my legs.” Thomas explained. “I need a plan to get this adorable assailant back outside before it gives me a sneezing fit. That’s why I called you and… Roman…”

Thomas lowered the broom as he stared at the dove on Logan’s shoulder.

“Roman?” Thomas asked.

Roman made a shrugging gesture with his wings and nodded.

Logan ran his fingers down his nose. “It’s a long story, Thomas. We have more pressing matters at hand, like how we're going to get this, er, _fetching feline_ out of your house.”

“Coo.” Roman complemented Logan on his alliteration.

“Thanks.”

“Murr?”

All three of them turned to look at the cat, who had stopped cleaning itself, it’s leg still propped in the air. Its ears and copper eyes were locked on Roman. Its tail began to twitch.

Thomas looked between the cat and his sides. “Can it… see you?”

“I… how…?” Logan was reeling from the implications, thinking back to every memory in Thomas’s mind about weird cat behavior. He came up empty on his knowledge of reality, but several memories of movies popped up. Horror, fantasy, sci-fi: plenty of these genres seemed to indicate that cats had supernatural abilities. Having those fictional speculations proved was the last thing Logan had been expecting to happen today.

The cat, for its part, didn’t really care that it was revealing its deepest secrets about being able to see otherworldly (or downright fictional) entities. It was far more concerned about the bird sitting on the black-shirted human’s shoulder. It lowered its leg, crouching against the ground as it approached Logan.

“Logan?” Thomas tried to get the side's attention.

“This doesn't make sense.” Logan muttered, still lost in his thoughts.

“Logan!”

“It shouldn’t… I mean… technically we're not _real_ …”

“LOGAN!”

“Wha- ow!” Logan yelped as the cat hooked its claws into the weave of his jeans. It began to climb his leg like he was a tree. “Ow, ow, ow!”

Logan kicked and shook his leg to try and dislodge the cat, but it held on with a vice grip.

“Coo coooo!” Roman screamed, flapping his wings to try and keep balanced while also trying to shoo the cat away.

“Let go, let go, let go!” Logan shrieked as the cat began to pull itself up onto his shirt. Roman squawked as he finally lost his balance. He half fell, half fluttered onto the ground.

The cat launched itself off of Logan’s back, shooting towards the bird. Roman continued to coo loudly as he tried to run.

“Roman!” Logan called, getting the dove’s attention. “Roman, you’re a bird! Fly for goodness sake!”

Roman cooed as he hopped into the air, fluttering for a bit, just out of the cat’s reach before he fell back down.

“Dammit, Roman, come on! I know you can do it!”

Roman jumped and fluttered again, the cat’s claws barely missing him. He tried again, and again, each time feeling the whoosh of air that meant he had just barely avoided being scratched.

Finally, he figured it out.

With a triumphant coo, he pulled himself into the air, flying above the cat as it hopped and pounced at him.

“Yes!” Thomas ran over to his front door. “This way!”

“Fly, Roman, fly!” Logan encouraged him.

Roman raced towards the door, the cat closely in tow. He zipped through the frame as Thomas cheered. The door slammed shut behind the cat as it continued to pursue its prey.

A few seconds later, the kitchen window screeched open. Thomas popped out the screen and tossed it aside. He stuck his hand out the window and waved at Roman. “This way!”

Roman glided through the window, and Thomas slid it shut behind him.

The cat stared at the closed door. It twitched its tail back and forth, and thought something along the lines of: “Wow, rude.”. It turned its back on the door, deciding to seek its dinner elsewhere.

\---

Logan and Roman popped up out of the floor after being dismissed, returning right back to the place in the hallway that they had left. Logan straightened out his hair and glasses as he let out a sigh. Roman preened out a few damaged feathers from his close encounter of the _furred_ kind, as he likely would have put it, if he could have talked.

“So, I was planning on going back to the library.” Logan tucked a bit of his shirt back in. “But, uh, after all that, I don’t know if I… feel like it?”

Roman tilted his head as Logan looked at him.

“Yes, I know, how strange. Logan, the almighty nerd, doesn't want to go back to his library.” Logan waved his hands in the air. “A rare occurrence, I _know_ , but I assure you it does happen sometimes, Roman.”

“Coo coo.”

“It’s just… it’s been a long day, Roman.”

“Coo-ooo.” Roman agreed.

“Do you… do you just want to skip going to dinner tonight? Just do something between the two of us? Something less… chaotic?”

Roman nodded, smiling as best as he could with a beak.

\---

Logan stood, Roman resting in his arms, in the middle of a grassy plain conjured in the imagination. They both took a synchronised deep breath, eyes closed. The air was comfortably warm, and the grass rippled like the shallows of the ocean on a windy day. Logan felt some tension leave his body as the stalks of the grass tickled his skin just above his socks.

“What a day.” Logan sighed.

“Coo.” Roman concurred.

They took another deep breath.

“Are you ready?” Logan asked.

“Coo.” Roman affirmed.

Logan lifted him into the air, spreading his arms as Roman took flight. He kept his hands up as he watched the dove rise toward the peach colored sky. His hands stayed up even as he flopped backwards, the soft grass catching him without the slightest jostle.

He watched the white silhouette spiral higher and higher on an updraft. The golden tips of Roman’s wings reflected brassy rainbows around him like a halo, or perhaps like a planet's rings.

Logan smiled. Shimmering feathers, a definite disadvantage if one was trying to hide from a predator, true. Yes, utterly useless for surviving in the wild as a prey animal.

And yet, un-objectively beautiful.

Logan watched Roman fly around for a while as he remained splayed out in the grass. The sky turned from peach, to lavender, to indigo.

Logan’s hair ruffled as Roman flew in close, swooping by his nose. Logan swore he saw Roman’s tiny brown eye wink at him as he whizzed by. He sat up as Roman shot upwards, going so high he needed to squint to see the dove as a tiny white speck against the darkening sky.

There was a deep rumble, and a burst of white energy blasted across the sky as Roman came speeding back, trailing golden light behind himself like a comet. Logan’s lips parted as he watched a line of stars burst to life behind Roman, spreading across the sky like fireworks.

Logan was on his feet before he knew it. He was running, running and praying he’d have the speed to keep up with the spectacle.

He didn’t manage to catch up. The field ended before his eyes, falling away into a cliff that bordered an endless sea. The water was glass still; Logan wouldn't have known it was there if he hadn’t accidentally knocked some dirt into it when he skidded to a stop. The tiny ripples were quickly stilled by the water’s expanse.

Logan sat on the edge of the cliff, watching as Roman and his reflection disappeared over the horizon, leaving nothing but an uninterrupted expanse of stars.

A few minutes later, Logan watched as two white clad legs slid down next to his. He turned to see Roman sitting on the cliffs edge, his palms buried in the grass. He had two huge white and gold wings stretching and twitching against his shoulders. Slowly they bent inwards, tucking towards his back, shrinking away until they were completely gone.

“Huh.” Logan exhaled.

They sat together in silence for a time, enjoying the void of stars. Logan scooped up a rock and flung it as far as he could get it to go. The ripple spread across the whole ocean, waving the stars’ reflection hypnotically as they bounced up and down.

“So…” Logan picked up another rock and tossed it, creating a second ripple. “Should I assume this whole day was an elaborate plan to get me to take an actual break?”

Roman laughed boisterously, and Logan suddenly realised he had missed that laugh. “That… would be way less embarrassing. Should I improvise a monologue about how you’ve been working too hard and so I came up with some nefarious scheme to make you stop?”

“Get Janus to write it, then maybe it will have some believability.”

“Ouch.”

“So you really were stuck, huh?”

“Yeah, not my proudest moment.” Roman ran a hand across the back of his head. “And I don’t like having my ego bruised, but alas.”

“It happens to the best of us, I'm sure.” Logan tossed another rock, marveling at how the rippling water was starting to look a bit like liquid gold. “Nonetheless, I had fun… I think.”

Roman shrugged. “All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”

“Cliché.”

“Lampshading.”

“Touché.”

Logan flopped backwards on the grass. “Thomas goes back to work tomorrow.”

Roman leaned back further. “Yup.”

“I… haven’t felt this glad that we’re going back to work in a long time. I suppose, in some strange way, that a thank you is in order.”

“No problem, nerd or nothing.”

Logan stared up at the starry sky. He reached his hand up, tracing a finger around some of the brighter stars. The figurative tracing closed into the shape of a bird. Logan grabbed Roman’s forearm and pointed it out.

Roman smiled and raised his arm. A silhouette of a bird drew itself around the stars, and it began to flap its wings, pushing other stars aside as it soared towards the edge of the rippling ocean. Logan watched in awe as the bird made of stars dipped into the horizon, and was engulfed by the golden shimmer of the water.

.

..

...


End file.
